


Nyctophilia

by Xhuuya



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Drinking, F/F, Moira POV, Moira is an anxious disaster, Mutual Pining, mostly it's just a long conversation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-18
Updated: 2018-06-18
Packaged: 2019-05-24 18:11:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14959598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Xhuuya/pseuds/Xhuuya
Summary: “That’s not important. Rather; it’s a discussion for another time, if you’d like.” She waves her hand dismissively and turns to look up at me, “You’re familiar with the Morrigan, aren’t you?”A rhetorical question, obviously. I try to school my expression back to a neutral one, listening to the paper crackle as I take another long drag.“The Norns, the Alaisiagae, the Valkyries.” She takes the cigarette from my mouth before the embers can burn my fingers, flicking it off the balcony and onto the rocks below. “They are all referenced by one name, but they are individuals, known later as one for their collective effect on destiny.”





	Nyctophilia

**Light thinks it travels faster than anything but it is wrong** .  **No matter how fast light travels, it finds the darkness has always got there first, and is waiting for it** . -Terry Prachett  
  
  


Angela holds herself with a disastrous sort of grace, sipping at her Williams as she rubs the bridge of her nose under her glasses. “This isn’t bad,” she mutters, staring down at the brandy as she swirls it in her glass. The ice cubes clinking against the sides is loud in the quiet room.    
  
“I told you it wasn’t,” I say and glance up from my notes. “I wasn’t going to have you distracted by bad alcohol when I wanted to talk to you.”   
  
“Right. Now that I’ve been thoroughly liquored with one of my homeland’s favorites, in my colleague’s apartment of all places,” she adjusts her glasses in that adorable, scholarly way that she must have learned while she was an adjunct in university, “what is it that you wanted to talk about?”

“Project Valkyrie.” I flick through a few screens on the holopad and turn the device, pushing it across the table towards her. My nail clicks against the screen, the ticking of a time bomb bound to explode.

“How did you get this?” She hesitates, as though taking it acknowledges something she doesn’t want to admit. The soft light of my reading lamp casts shadows across her face when she frowns at it. The match hesitates at the fuse.“This was...a rejected proposal for my dissertation.”   
  
“I’m aware.” I scratch at my cheek, back around my neck. I fold my hands on my bouncing knee to try and still the movement. I will myself not to gnaw at my cuticles. “I was on the council that rejected the idea.”

“What?” Fuse lit. Ice rattles as she slams her glass onto the table. She leans forward—I can’t help but think if we were standing, she’d be pressed close, piercing blue eyes trying to find the sanity in my testing her patience—I curse how much her passion makes my heart race with unusual excitement. “The idea of using nanite healing technology to better protect and sustain field medic personnel during combat was a solid proposition, especially if these world organizations constantly  _ insist  _ on finding something to fight about—”   
  
“ _ I’m  _ not disagreeing with that.” I raise my hands and half shrug in mock surrender. I’d heard enough of her mumbling in the lab to know she kept her feelings contained most of the time; I knew introducing alcohol would reduce her inhibition. I’m willing to play with fire.   
  
“Then why reject it?” Her anger subsides, replaced by confusion. Her brow knits. The haze of alcohol doesn’t help her in the more delicate aspects of nonverbal communication. She catches my smirk and takes it for amusement rather than the endearment it is. “Don’t mock me, Dr. O’Deorain.”   
  
“I’m not  _ mocking you _ , Dr. Ziegler,” I growl, quick to irritation with such misplaced anger. I hadn’t considered that the alcohol would numb her sense along with her inhibition. How frustrating. “I said I was on the council that rejected it, not that I  _ personally  _ rejected your idea. Please be more sensible before you throw out such accusations.”

She deflates, sinking back into the plush armchair and blowing a piece of loose hair away from her eyes. It takes her a moment working her jaw before she spits a frustrated, but genuine, apology. 

“Regardless, how did you acquire  _ this? _ ” Working to regain a sense of control and calm composure before she continues, she tucks the hair behind her ear and sips at her brandy. “This is more than I presented to the council.”

“I have resources. The same kind that many of these organizations you seem to hold so much ire towards have.” I notice the dangerous look that she’s too slow to hide, but she doesn’t interrupt. “I wanted to be someone that not only kept it safe from them, but also proposed a way to make it a reality.”   
  
This seems to surprise her, and she leans back to regard me with that same look I see her give her clinical trials in the lab. I don’t miss the invitation when she shifts her glass to the side to give me her full attention, opening the space between us.    
  
“The type of medical and technological advancement you researched is the sort that is dangerous without being explicitly so.” I wave off her starting a defense on the subject. I don’t need to hear it; I think I could recite her stance on the matter from memory. “Whether  _ you  _ want it to be or not, humans will always find a way to weaponize even the most innocuous and well-intentioned ideas.” 

“That can’t be a reason we stop trying to advance our...” She pauses to analyze the grin I can feel tugging the corners of my lips, and I briefly entertain the idea that her look is lingering on my mouth for different reasons. “You said you wanted the idea to see the light of day. Do you mean...?”   
  
“I do.” I grin fully now, and even she can’t help but join me in smiling. “I have the resources you would need. I can help you make it a reality.”

“However?” Of course she hears the unspoken stipulation.   
  
“ _ However _ ,” I parrot, resting my chin in my hand, struggling to keep eye contact when the disappointment darkens her gorgeous eyes, “I would have to be the one to weaponize it.”

“What?!” Her anger isn’t directed at me this time—though I’m sure my disappointment is also very evident in the way I curl into myself—the pitch of her voice hikes and then drops again very quickly. “ _ Why? _ ”   
  
“Because,” I drain the remaining brandy in my glass, slugging it back like a shot instead of a drink meant to be sipped, “Blackwatch won’t approve the project otherwise.”

She is silent for a long time, sipping slower to finish her drink. The only sound in the room other than the ticking of an old-fashioned clock I have on the wall is her glasses clattering on the table when she tosses them down, rubbing furiously at the bridge of her nose again. I think to make a joke about being a lightweight, but I keep my mouth shut this time. 

It’s not an easy proposition for a young scientist new to Overwatch to digest, and I would be more concerned if she’d rushed into an answer. I will wait.

“I’ll need time to think about it.”   
  
I will wait however long she needs. She has far too much promise to be impatient.    
  
“Of course.” I smear a finger through the circle of condensation under my glass, contemplating my next words carefully. “Did you want to stay the night and discuss it more?”

“Dr. O’Deorain,” I would think she’s going to scold me if her voice didn’t ring with such amusement, of which some might be due solely to the influence of the alcohol, “has this been a date this whole time?” 

I’m glad I don’t have more of my drink; I think I might've sputtered it all over myself if I did. “I simply thought it would be cumbersome to get back to your apartment, and I’m genuinely interested in collaborating with you, Dr. Ziegler.”

“How chivalrous.” Her eyes twinkle with amusement as she smiles at me, and I know my pale skin flushes bright with blush. I can feel the heat creeping down my neck, and I have a much higher alcohol tolerance than she does. It’s not the number of drinks that’s making me feel flustered. 

She seems unwilling to relent now that she realizes she’s getting under my skin. “Blackwatch’s notoriously venomous lead scientist so interested in talking with an Overwatch agent, and a new one at that. I must say I was quite curious for the reason.” 

Her grin is wicked when she leans back, resting her arm along the back of the chair, quite confident with herself now. “You want to collaborate with me. Could it be that you actually think it possible for someone to be somewhat your equal?”

“Do you think I go around sharing this,” I lift the bottle, wagging it back and forth, “with someone I don’t consider at least a colleague?” My bad reputation is no news to me, but I fight the sting of hearing it from her. “I’m not as bad as my reputation would have you believe, you know? Also, you aren’t  _ just someone  _ to me _.” _

I mentally kick myself for being so forward—not to mention sensitive—but have already thought of a few ways to excuse my behavior. Alcohol would be my first choice, but I know she’s smart enough to call my bullshit for that—even if she’s had a few too many glasses to think as clearly as she normally would—and I’m not about to take that chance. I’m trying to think of other reasons and their strength based on believability. 

I notice her smile has faltered. I must have missed something she said. “I apologize. What?”

“I asked what that’s supposed to mean.” 

_ Oh _ .

A bad question to miss responding to promptly as now my answer won’t sound nearly as genuine, and I’ve given her time to provide her own answer to it. I chew my lip, the stupid nerves of my faltered confidence shifting to anxiety. “I mean you’re brilliant. You know that of course; there’s a reason you ranked into your position so quickly.”  _ Damn it, was she going to think that sounded envious or condescending?  _ “Not to say it wasn’t well-deserved.”

She’s giggling now—lips pressed against her knuckles in such a darling fashion—at me stumbling over this off-handed compliment, looking rather tickled by this situation. “It’s not like you to second guess yourself, Doctor.”   
  
“Call me Moira.” I abruptly want this space between to be more than a work endeavor, enough to say something to dispel the illusion—if one still exists at all, “At least while we’re away from the base. Please.”

“Only if you call me Angela,” here she leans her cheek against her fingertips, her gaze turning soft, playful, “which I feel will be harder for you to do, so you’re going to have to work for it.” 

“I’m inclined to disagree. Work is something I’m plenty accustomed to.” I wink at her, my confidence tentative in the way it creeps back in every other beat of my anxious heart. Working is something I know, something I can focus on, something logical.

“So. Angela.” I refill our glasses, wondering whether we will finish the chilled bottle of brandy or if I’ll have to find the spare to cover the pear now exposed to the air, “What made you take up my offer to come meet here?”

“Aside from you knowing my hometown’s drink of choice you mean?” She laughs and traces her finger around the rim of the glass, as if contemplating whether she wanted it or not. I can’t help but think that the thought occurs in tandem with the one of whether it was wise to stay with a colleague you knew only fleetingly, the way two people might know each other when they have similar caffeine habits, bad coping mechanisms and addictions, workaholic attitudes, nearly nonexistent sleeping schedules, and an affinity for lab work and clinical trials. “If I’m being honest, I don’t know.”

“I find that surprising.” She looks briefly confused again, raising a brow at me. I elaborate: “I don’t feel you’re often in a position of not knowing.”   
  
“I’m not a miracle worker,” she laughs, the sound far more bitter than amused, and finally takes a long sip of her drink. “I can’t know everything all the time, regardless of whether that’s the expectation of me.”

“Let me rephrase; I expect you don’t often not know something about your own motivations.”

“That’s fair.” She swirls the alcohol, contemplating again. I can’t help but think she looks  _ so damn tired _ for someone so young, but then I remember how I was—how I still am—and recognize that you can’t take us away from our passions, no matter how exhausting it all can be. 

“I think I just felt comfortable enough to accept it. I feel like I already know you, you know? We’re pretty similar, I think.” Now she’s doing her own bit of tipsy rambling, and I find it terribly endearing as she works through her reasoning. I wonder if she still would have explained had I not thrown in that little challenge. “I look up to you in a way, but I also think we work well together. I mean, obviously Blackwatch’s projects are separate of my own, but I think you understand where others fail to, and it shows in the way we exist in each others’ space without frustrating one another to the point of distraction.”

_You underestimate_ _just how distracting you are, actually._

For not the first time this evening, I keep my mouth shut as the thought crosses my mind. I’m not so lucky that she doesn’t see the brief smile though. “You know, you’re quite handsome, and I think even more so when you smile. I’d say accepting your invitation was worth it solely to see it more than I ever have while working.”

I swear no one has ever managed to both shake and strengthen my self-assuredness the way she does. I can’t even keep the eye contact she maintains through bold-faced admissions that I’m struggling to believe are real, that I’m practically praying—through my stubborn agnosticism, even—that I’m hearing her correctly. 

Maybe I’ve had more than I thought. I stare at my glass like it might suddenly reveal how much I’ve consumed throughout the evening, like it might explain the chaotic static currently buzzing in my head.

My pause seems to pass the threshold of normal conversation limits, and she tilts her head in a curious manner. “Perhaps I was too forward in saying such.” 

“No! No.” I say it too quickly and she looks quite surprised by my sudden jump from prior silence. “That’s not it. I’m simply,” I chew my lip, peeling dry skin away and immediately tasting the blood from it, cursing my constant state of chapped lips for the first time in many years, “not accustomed to hearing compliments.”

“I’ve often found myself attracted to those that aren’t.” She places her glasses back on, and gives me a lopsided sort of grin, as if she’s holding back saying something more.   
  
“Aren’t handsome, or aren’t accustomed to compliments?” I laugh, knowing that she means the latter, but I enjoy teasing her. I think she would probably challenge me to call it my unique brand of flirting, but I ignore that thought.

She ignores my question, knowing full well that I know what she means, and leans her cheek into her hand to study me. 

I’d imagine it’s easier now that her glasses are on again, but I wonder if she truly needs corrective lenses at all.  _ That’s a conversation for another time though.  _ “Getting a better look, Doc—Angela?”

She closes her eyes, dramatically considering the question for a long moment with that darling smile—almost assuredly a result of me nearly missing her name already—striking me with the most intense gaze when she decides on her answer: “Perhaps.”

It’s cryptic, intentionally of course, but I find myself reeling at her expression so immediately puzzling me. 

Her eyes make me feel like I’ve jumped into the deepest depths of the ocean outside, content to float endlessly in the darkness while the moonlight illuminates my skin and I ponder what poetic nonsense has taken over my mental faculties so suddenly.

As quickly as the thought turns, I stand, chair nearly clattering to the floor. Before I can even think about my request, it’s out of my mouth, “Do you want to go out on the balcony?”

She levels me with that knowing smile, like she realizes a secret I don’t. “You know smoking is terrible for your health.”

“I know, I know.” I‘m happy for the opportunity to hide my true intentions in a nervous laugh before I grab my glass, the condensation feeling blessedly cool against my sweating palm as I make my way over to the sliding door. 

I can never deny my overwhelming urges to look into the night sky, to try and count the number of stars I can see, if not solely for the sake of being able to focus on something other than the confusing amount of feelings I’m trying to analyze and compartmentalize. 

“Does it clear your head?” She asks as she hugs herself, rubbing her palms over arms exposed by the flight shirt she wears under her coat. She must realize too late that she left the coat by the front door when she came in earlier. 

The cool and quiet breeze from the ocean feels nice to someone as hot-blooded as I can be, but I notice gooseflesh cascading down her forearms within a few seconds. I set my drink down, grab my smokes and lighter from an inside pocket of my coat, and hold it out for her to take. “The sensation of being cold has always helped me focus.”   
  
She looks like she wants to argue—decides otherwise and takes the coat when she sees my nonchalant shrug accompany my reasoning—putting on her best academic voice to lecture me instead, “You know, science would say that’s not true. Studies say you’re using a substantial amount of energy into keeping warm instead of concentrating.”

“Yes. Well,” I mumble through the cigarette dangling in my lips, shielding the flame with my hand until it lights and taking a long drag before exhaling with the rest of the thought, “being cold is a feeling that’s easier to understand than the others that tend to push me to seek this type of escape. I find those feelings far more distracting than the slower vibration of atoms.”   
  
I have to admit to myself that I’m going to have to deal with the feelings sooner rather than later, primarily because my heart does what I can only imagine as a flip in my chest when she pushes her arms through sleeves far too long for her, holding up her hands only for the excess material to fold and dangle from  her much shorter arms. 

Her brows knit together again, as if annoyed by the minor inconvenience, but after she glances up at me, she laughs. 

The sound is so bright, so different than the ones I’ve heard before, and leaves me feeling a bit shaken. I’m suddenly anxious that she’s laughing at me, that I’m missing the context for an inside joke I’m not part of. I can see my cigarette trembling in my fingers as I glance away, attention focused back to the ocean in the distance. 

Her fingers suddenly brushing against my arm make me thankful that I’m mid-exhale, my teeth click together in my surprise, and I think I might have swallowed my filter after biting through it if it wasn’t the case. I choke down a cough after swallowing the rest of the smoke trapped within my clenched jaw. 

There’s that studious gaze again. I can see her working through an assortment of scenarios, maybe even some of them the same as my own. A strange bubbling terror overrides any amount of eagerness I could have about sharing some of the possible outcomes.

Just as I believe the static-filled silence is stretching to the point of making my skin itch, she finally breaks it. “I feel like this is the first time I’m truly getting to look at you.”

I make a noncommittal noise and lift my cigarette back to my lips, silently counting the waves that crash into the shore. I have to restart a few times before she continues.

She shrugs the sleeves, but I notice the excess length still covers her hands as she crosses her arms over her chest. “We are…” she starts, tilting her head to the side and chewing at her lip, “unlike most other people.”

“Quite a way to avoid the synonymous and cliche line of ‘we’re different’ if you don’t mind me saying.” I huff a dry laugh, flicking ashes over the railing. “I know you have a better hook than  _ that _ .”

She rolls her eyes—in a different setting she might have scolded me for my insistence on always challenging her—but considers for a moment. “I would, without a doubt, say that the two of us are the best of our respective fields, individually—”   
  
_ Could you imagine what we could do together? _

“—Together we have the potential to actually change the entire medical field, scientific field, and—without trying to sound too much like an aloof, new doctor not yet jaded by the industry and constant bureaucratic interference—the world.”

“I don’t know that I share your ideals in that way.” A crushing sense of disappointment makes it impossible to look anywhere near her. I’m terrified that her disappointment will rival that which I feel towards myself. “I don’t particularly care about being a savior.”

“And yet, ‘ _ Fac et aliquid operis, ut semper te diabolus inveniat occupatum.’”  _

I gape at her, surprised, “How—?”

“That’s not important. Rather; it’s a discussion for another time, if you’d like.” She waves her hand dismissively and turns to look up at me, “You’re familiar with the Morrigan, aren’t you?” 

A rhetorical question, obviously. I try to school my expression back to a neutral one, listening to the paper crackle as I take another long drag.

“The Norns, the Alaisiagae, the Valkyries.” She takes the cigarette from my mouth before the embers can burn my fingers, flicking it off the balcony and onto the rocks below. “They are all referenced by one name, but they are individuals, known later as one for their collective effect on destiny.”

I stare down at her, forcing my jaw closed lest I continue gaping at her instead. I mentally retract my earlier assessment of it being a fuse; it’s more of a switch, and I see the light brighten her eyes with that same passion. I find myself wanting to see that light more, and wonder if I’m only just becoming aware of something I’ve subconsciously been attracted to every other time I’ve pushed her limits in clinicals.

I don’t pull back this time, though the warm clouds of her breath tickling the open space between the buttons on my shirt threaten to make me shiver.  “Now arguing the linguistics of Fate as it pertains to mythological concepts is a  _ hook _ , if your knowledge of Catholic philosophy wasn’t already.” 

“I figured I might know a few ways to get your attention.” Hidden in a sultry smile, her voice is a purr, barely audible over the salt-kissed breeze—the only thing between us, the very thing I blame for the goosebumps cascading over my arms—and she fans her fingers over my exposed chest, resting her palm against the staccato rhythm hammering against my ribs. She hums and taps her fingers in time with the echoes in my bones, “My knowledge of Marfan’s syndrome is still too elementary to use that as my hook.”

My breath hisses through my teeth and I have to make a conscious effort not to step back away from her, appreciative of tall railing against my back. “You’ve been reading my files.”

She shifts her hand, pulling fabric of my shirt in her fist, changes my focus, draws my eyes to a single point, steps closer, pushes against me, reels me in, I can’t run, I can’t run, I can’t—

“Guilty.” She breathes below my ear, lips grazing my neck, and her voice is like honey in my veins. I am her prey, paralyzed, a victim to nature’s whim. I don’t fight when her hand moves up my neck, over my jaw, my cheek, and she completes her kill when her lips meet mine, my senses so overstimulated that I can only melt into the kiss.

“What else are you guilty of, Angela?” I hate how breathless I am, sighing the question into her hair while she hides her blush against my collar.

“Many things in the past.” She takes my hands, shaking and twitching at my sides, and pulls them to rest on her hips as she slides her eyes back to meet mine. “Likely many things in the future as well.”  

I wonder many things simultaneously: why me of all people, why she doesn’t smell at all like alcohol, why she feels so warm even though she seemed cold, what the promise in her voice means. It’s the loud static buzzing in my head, anxiety’s awful attempt at white noise, but she instantly silences it with the way she brushes a loose strand of my hair from my face. 

“Get out of your head, Moira.” She kisses the corner of my lips first, giving me a moment to anticipate her pressing her lips to mine more forcefully. Her hand moves through my hair, and the simple thought of her nails grazing my scalp drives the tension from my body. She must sense it because she giggles against my lips, looking at my now hooded gaze. “Well, if  _ that’s _ all it takes...”

She feels like an exhilarating challenge. She gently scratches through my hair, as if encouraging me, and I finally stop trying to fight the fact that this is exactly what I wanted all along. 

What was my reasoning for inviting her here? The idea of working as partners? Infatuation? Curiosity? The fact that I can’t sleep at night without thinking about that brilliant smile and the smell of vanilla and sage? 

The night ending with our first kiss being a sickeningly cliche moment under the moonlight is something that I can only think of as a dream. I’m sure I will wake up even as she tugs me back into my own apartment, stating something about it being chilly even when I still feel nothing but the warmth buzzing beneath my skin.

My desire to know more about Angela Ziegler compounds with time, and I find that this makes no exception to that fact.

We will learn together.

_ I think. _

  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading my self-indulgent trash. <3
> 
> The Latin is a St. Jerome quote that's similar to Moira's "idle hands" line.
> 
> Any commentary, ideas, criticisms, etc. are very much so appreciated.


End file.
